The team of Julia Ocoma (11-Favre) & Matti Tan (10-Mayer) emerged as the grand champion of Fast Forward, a high school advanced debate and adjudication boot camp. The prestigious tournament was hosted by the UP Debate Society at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City from April 22-24, 2017. In the Grand Final, Ocoma & Tan successfully opposed the motion on closing, “This house believes that nationalism has no place in the school curriculum.” They won on a 3-1-1 split against a fellow Ateneo Debate team comprised of Hans Gonzalez (11-Hoyos) & Phil Javellana (12-H), and two other teams from Xavier School. In addition, recent Ateneo Senior High School graduate Red Nadela (12-A) was named overall best speaker of the tournament, outranking 112 other participants.

The debaters extend their gratitude to Mrs. Fe de Jesus and Mr. Joel Falgui, moderators of the ASHS and AJHS Debaters, respectively. They also thank the ASHS and AJHS administrators for continuing to support the debaters in their various competitions.